Word: ibos
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...planes can run the gauntlet of federal radar-controlled antiaircraft fire. But they are not only losing the war: slowly but surely, eight million Biafrans are starving to death. Gradually, the image of Biafra's human agony has unsettled the conscience of the world. That image is of Ibo infants and children with anguished, vacant eyes, distended bellies, shriveled chests and matchstick limbs crippled from edema. The world has protested in the form of silent marches of New Yorkers outside the United Nations building, impassioned debates in Britain's Parliament and West Germany's Bundestag, shillings and sixpences collected...
...time being, such questions pale before the immediate human one: What is to be the Biafrans' fate? Gowon himself does not want the "final solution" that the Ibos so deeply fear. But he does not speak for all Nigeria, nor can he control all his military commanders. Each day that passes, the matter becomes more and more irrelevant to many Ibos. Even should massive food supplies suddenly arrive, thousands of undernourished Biafrans would die with the first bellyful of protein food that they took. It would simply prove too much for their debilitated systems to handle. Already, famine must have...
...children of Biafra, like children in all wars, are the victims of a struggle beyond their control. Their parents, rightly or wrongly, believe that the Ibos must follow their own destiny and carve out their own mini-nation. The federal Nigerians believe in the vision of a united, pluralist Nigerian nation. The cruel dilemma has been eloquently summed up by Yoruba Playwright Wole Soyinka. "Every Ibo man, woman and child believes today that he is fighting a last-ditch battle for his home and his dignity," he says. "What that means in practical terms to the nation is that...
...land of physical ruin. Crowded into hardwood forests and mangrove swamps that cannot possibly support them, Biafrans are starving to death, by a conservative estimate, at the rate of 1,000 a day. Most of the 4,500,000 refugees from all corners of Nigeria who returned to the Ibo heartland live in makeshift camps, totally dependent on scanty government and missionary rations. The price of staple foods has risen fantastically (cost of a dozen eggs: $4), and salaried work is almost nonexistent. Biafra's chance of survival shrinks with each day; yet its resolution seems unwavering. Ojukwu himself...
...Hausa and Fulani, haughty, devout Moslem peoples governed locally by feudal emirs. The Western Region is the home of the Yoruba, a tribe known for its profusion of gods (more than 400) and its joie de vivre. To the east, where they are now trapped, the ambitious and clever Ibo people thrived. Brought forcibly together under colonial rule, the three regions developed the hatreds and jealousies of totally different cultures. Most hated of all?and most envied by other Nigerians?were the Ibos, quite possibly Africa's most capable people and, by force of energy and intellect, the dominant tribe...